Creation Science Rebuttals

Carbon Dioxide and the Flood

As Glenn Morton explains, the single Ice Age theory proposed by young earth
creation science advocate Michael Oard would have roasted Noah, and I would not be here
typing this, nor would you be there reading this. This article is
located on Glenn Morton's website, and is reprinted below by permission.

Carbon Dioxide and the Flood

By
Glenn R. Morton

Copyright 1998 G.R. Morton

This may be freely distributed so long as no monetary charges and no
alterations to the text are made.

Not only do volcanoes produce lots of sulfuric acid, they produce more
CO2. I found this:

"Using the Kilauea eruption as a model, Terrence M. Gerlach of
Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque estimated that the Deccan Traps
injected up to 30 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, six trillion tons of
sulfur and 60 billion tons of halogens (reactive elements such as chlorine
and fluorine) into the lower atmosphere over a few hundred years."
~ Vincent E. Courtillot, "A Volcanic Eruption," Scientific American,
October, 1990, p. 85-92, p. 89

There are huge lava flows on earth, called
volcanic traps, which must have occurred during the flood year because
they lie on top of supposed flood deposited sedimentary rock and beneath
flood deposited sedimentary rock. So if the geology requires that they
be extruded during the flood, how much sulfuric acid must come with them?
Here are some of the volumes of rock extruded to the earth's surface during
such episodes:

Given that there are 1016 kg/ton this means that during the one year
flood, 3.47 x 10^17 kg of CO2 would be released. According
to my CRC the mass of the atmosphere is 5.2 x 10^21 g or 5.2 x 10^18 kg.
Thus the amount of CO2 released ONLY by the volcanic traps during
the YEC global flood, is equal to 6.6% of the entire atmosphere.

How does this relate to the present atmosphere? Currently we are approaching
400 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere, yet the YEC
scenario would produce an atmosphere that had AS A MINIMUM a CO2
level of 58615 parts per million. Scientists are worried about a 600 ppm
CO2 world next century, the YEC post flood world would create
such a hot climate that all life would be destroyed. Yet amazingly, Creationists
like Austin, Baumgardner, Wise, Snelling, Vardiman, Humphreys and Oard
think that the post flood world would be glacially cold. (See "Austin
et al, Catastrophic Plate Tectonics" 3rd ICC 1994, p. 615 and Michael
Oard, A rapid Post Flood Ice Age," CRSQ 16(1979):29-37; Oard, An Ice
age Caused by the Genesis Flood, 1990 ICR).

Of course, CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas and young-earth
creationists have not given the thought to this issue that they should
have. Their global flood would choke Noah on sulfuric acid and then choke
him again on the CO2, and with an atmosphere so clogged with
CO2, Noah would burn up. Venus has an atmosphere with lots of
CO2 and the temperature there is several hundred degrees C.!
But somehow, YECs want us to believe that the postflood, CO2
rich atmosphere would be very cold. Is there any scientific fact that will
move them to reconsider their views?

Modified 6-8-02

If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision
for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to
what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the
inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while
still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.

Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we
have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in
this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If
you are a young-earth creationism believer,
click here.